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South African sound still relentlessly gnarly, reports show
Firstly, apologies for the huge lateness in reviewing this. I thought it'd been sent my way in about November last year, but according the psynews it appeared in August, and there's nothing about it on Psyshop, so it might have already sold out and become deleted. I'm feeling two emotions, one being what a dreadful human being I am to have ignored my reviewerly duty for so long, and the other being how sodding old I'm becoming if I can't even remember whether something happened to me three months ago, or six months ago.
Still, regardless of how long ago something happened, and how much of an abject shit I am, Chemistry has been an alum that, for whatever reason, I've found myself quite enjoying.
Its sound is very much in that current SA groove, having echoes of foresty-ness but flecking everything with an uplifting danceability. Mixing those two styles together is like pissing in the wind: fun, and a good laugh -- but get it wrong and you end up with a trouser-leg covered in urine.
Deliriant's main problem is twofold: one, the breakdowns are too long. Yer average munted dancefloor needs no deliberate reason to become distracted by lights shining up at a tree, so don't give them one --Indestructable and Grudge are is otherwise-solid tunes that would be improved by a creative DJ's Ableton edit, trimming the breakdown and concentrating on the energy.
Second, there's too much high-end. Deliriant creates some bloody nice backbones, with bass and space working perfectly. It drives, it focuses and it throbs. This might sound like I'm just describing a bassline and kickdrum, but it goes deeper than that. There's something almost Zenon-y about the bottomend, which is wonderful except.... he seems to want to fill up the sound spectrum too much, and too soon.
This leads to a sort of over-reliance on high-end stabs and an over-deployment of mid-high FX, so you find yourself pushed over the edge of a mountain you were perfectly happy climbing at your own pace.
Despite all this, there's something oddly captivating about Chemistry. It's not groundbreaking, it's not challenging, and it's certainlty not without cliche, but somewhere in the spirit of the album there's a 'good old fashioned knees-up' firmly in Deliriant's sights and regardless of the medium, that message still gets through.
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